corrente

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Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Nukular Family

Julia over at American Street picks up a story that Trish Wilson has been following for awhile, about a 7 months pregnant mother of 2 who lost her children to a ruling by a New York State Family Court judge, Damian Amodeo, who also happens to serve on a commission appointed by the Chief Judge of New York State to improve the family court’s handling of custody matters. For 4 years she went in front of this man, bringing against her ex evidence and allegations of his physical and emotional abuse of herself and the children, and Amodeo consistently ruled against her. Then Amodeo ruled recently that the ex could move with the children to Texas, effectively eliminating the mom from their lives:

"Having lost supervised visitation rights and having not seen her children for around eight months now, Genia may never see them again. All of this has happened to Genia, a Russian immigrant, IBM engineer, and former "Mother of the Year," due to the rulings of Judge Amodeo, which consistently have favored the children's father, despite good evidence that he abused Genia throughout their marriage."

So she goes into court once more to protest this action, and Amodeo slaps her with a contempt of court citation just before Mother's Day and sends her to jail for 30 days. To add insult to injury:

"If Genia were to happen to be in jail when she gives birth to this next child (whose father is not Genia's husband), she stands a high risk of losing custody of that child to the state"

The source material on this, which Trish and Julia have cited at length and which can also be found here, is too long to cover here. You need to read it to fully comprehend the enormity of the injustice suffered by this woman. And then check out the online petition that requests a stay in the Amadeo order and demands he be removed and investigated. Please seriously consider signing this.

I would have thought this was one of those judicial appointments the right gets so exercised about, what with all their family values. But since it was a Republican governor behind this, I imagine they can live with it.

I have only one question for Judge Amodeo: when did YOU stop beating your wife?